


An Echo of the Soul

by RisuAlto



Series: Lila's Story [1]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: All the companions from PoE1 are mentioned briefly, Gen, Inspired by Music, Kinda, Language of Flowers, Lila has the Everything Bad background, She's a dick, Songfic, Xoti is less of a dick, they are also all dead, they're working on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 16:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21479044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: Lila was aware that bells were ominous.  It was one of the reasons that the humming of her soul in the presence of those who called themselves gods was so despicable.  But this particular “bell” seemed to ring in both directions along the path of time, and both were equally dark.
Relationships: The Watcher & Xoti (Pillars of Eternity)
Series: Lila's Story [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548214
Kudos: 1
Collections: Pillars of Eternity Prompts Weekly





	An Echo of the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> So, my thought process for this fic sounded exactly like this: “Language of flowers? Idk anything about that so I guess I’m going to make it up. Gotta pick a fake flower now… Oh, Berath’s bell. Bells. Godlike chimes. Watcher’s a godlike. The plant’s resonating with her Issues. It sounds an echo in her soul. Oh, fuck.” And so the debut of the Everything Bad in Deadfire Watcher I created with [nana_banana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nana_banana/pseuds/nana_banana) turned into an Enya songfic. Kinda. Whoops.
> 
> If you’re not familiar with Everything Bad, it’s an option for the imported history of your watcher into Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire that ends with, “If there was a mistake you could have made while still resolving the Hollowborn Crisis, you made it.” Besides that, Lila is a fire godlike cipher from the Deadfire with high Aggressive and Cruel reputations.

* * *

_Through all the tumult and the strife_

_I hear this music ringing_

_It sounds an echo in my soul_

_How can I keep from singing?_

* * *

The thing that Lila appreciated most about Xoti was that the priestess didn’t ask for much that Lila didn’t already have or plan to do. She didn’t ask Lila to go out of her way to find things, or people, or other targets. She certainly never asked Lila to check her moral compass, which was oddly _refreshing_ after having been stuck for years on end with only Steward and some mice-like servants. Rather, Xoti was just happy to follow the Watcher, _watch_ her, and then clean up the trail of souls that followed in Lila’s wake.

This, perhaps, was why Lila only sighed (as opposed to scowling, growling, or flaring her hair so violently it singed her pack straps), when Xoti paused on the open plains, glancing with bright brown eyes towards the edge of a forest that darkened the eastern road. “Hey, Watcher?” she said, vibrating with anticipation. “I don’t mean to slow you down, but wouldja mind if I just ran over there real quick?”

“Why?” Lila crossed her arms, suspicion flickering in her voice. She might have made an allowance by not snapping the girl’s head off, but it didn’t make the weird behavior any less…well, weird.

Xoti’s face lit up, excited to not have been shut down, and she clapped her hands before her chest, rattling the lantern in her grip. Its magenta-gold flame trembled hypnotically as her arms returned to rest. “I’ll show you in just a sec,” she said, and scurried off the path. 

The deep olive fabric of her robes began to fade into the scenery as Lila stared after her. The closer Xoti drew to the forest, the more the shadows seemed to lap at her heels, seep into the folds of fabric at her back. The sun was only barely visible above the tree line on the horizon, glittering snappishly across Lila’s vision. Everything was distorted slightly by the bright haze (not to mention, though she could withstand it for longer than your average kith, sunlight did start making her eyes water eventually), so she gave up on watching Xoti and tilted her head towards the sky.

The Deadfire sky wasn’t much different than the Dyrwood’s, she noted, feeling suddenly very aware of the uneven ground, the ruts pressing against the soles of her feet. Somehow, still, it was all very different. The vast _blueness_ seemed somehow vaster and _more_ blue, though Lila knew this was stupid. It was all the same sky.

Maybe it was because she wasn’t being weighed down by a thousand responsibilities she never fucking wanted. Sure, she still had the whole Eothas problem out here, but if anything, he’d done her a favor by picking up part of her soul (she was fine without it, less weight to carry) and destroying her keep (it felt more like a prison, most days).

Her eyes still stung from staring at the horizon. Lila clenched her fingers shut around her biceps, fingers digging deep enough to bruise a lesser woman as she fought the discomfort off her face.

“Watcher!”

She still thought that accent was better off staying in the Dyrwood—_in her past, thank you very much_—but as it became obvious that Xoti’s smile was as sharp as it was bubbly, Lila relented that maybe she wasn’t much like the pigheaded Dyrwoodans. Slowly, the godlike dropped her chin back down to meet Xoti’s gaze as she hurried onto the beaten road. “Well?” Lila asked.

Xoti held something out, only barely stopping it from impacting the front of Lila’s armor. “Here, take a look,” she said, voice dropping low and secretive. In her gloved fingers was gripped a flower that Lila had seen before, many times, but never really looked at. It was a thick, deep green stalk no taller than half Lila’s forearm, with inky blue flowers dripping from the stem. The petals of the flowers were dusted with gold in a way that reminded Lila of her own fingertips, but this gold was strangely dull. Like pyrite with none of the appeal and only the lie.

“It’s called Berath’s Bell,” Xoti explained, taking Lila’s silence for a lack of understanding.

She huffed. “I’ve seen it before.”

“I didn’t think it even grew out here on the islands! I haven’t seen any since I got here.” The flowers were pulled back from Lila’s chest, taking with them the faint odor she associated with many long nights in the forest… years ago. 

Xoti’s gaze was fixed on the plant, and she reached up with her other hand to caress the tips of the petals. It was only then that Lila noticed Xoti had secured her lantern at her hip instead of holding it as normal. Her fingers pulled away after a moment, the tips of her gloves spotted with the flower’s maroon pollen as she stared at them, eyes fading as though seeing something far away.

Lila made a large show of sighing and rolling her eyes. “Alright, fine,” she said magnanimously, “I’ll bite. What’s so special about the damn flower?”

“Well, for one, it’s great for brewin’ poisons and lacing into traps,” Xoti said. “But there’s also the _meaning_, Watcher. I don’t know if this is much of a thing out here, but back where I come from, the flowers have a whole language just for their own. People give flowers in order to tell folks stuff they can’t actually say.”

Lila blinked slowly, unimpressed. “Like what, ‘you’re an ass and I wish you’d never married into the family?’”

Xoti just laughed, dark curls bouncing as she shook her head. “Well, sometimes, I guess. But usually it’s more romantic.”

“Uh-huh. Fascinating. C’mon, then, let—”

“This one’s not, though.” Xoti brushed her pollen-stained fingers off on one flap of her cloak before looking back up at Lila. “Nobody used the Berath’s Bell save for mystics and apothecaries,” she said, “’cause it kinda represents death.”

“I can see why you like it, then,” Lila said, glancing pointedly at Xoti’s sickle.

The glance caught Xoti’s attention and she smiled. “It does feel like something Gaun oughta share,” she said. “If only the flowers looked more like stars than bells. But it also represents non-aggression, adaptability, and secrets… I guess because even though it looks so pretty, it’s actually deadly.”

A laugh bubbled up, causing the veins on Lila’s neck to spark a little. “So if this shit is like a language, doesn’t that mean you’ve got like one word to mean all those things? Seems complicated.”

“Guess so,” Xoti said with a shrug, pocketing the flower. “But I think kith are kinda like that, too, y’know? Sometimes they say one thing and…y’know…mean something else.”

As though a pin was shoved into her bones, Lila’s jaw locked itself into a grimace. She heard her own voice, whispering gently across her memories, interspersed with hisses of voices from six feet under the Dyrwood. 

_Seventeen and a half--_

_Misunderstandings and mistranslations--_

_Whore of a goddess--_

_The foundations of our culture--_

_For the Republics--_

_It was the best I could do--_

_Guess I had it all wrong._

_What do I have to lose?_

“Everything,” Lila whispered to herself, before quickly trying to cover it with a cough. She’d spent too long _almost_ going insane before to relapse now. But suppressing the memories didn’t change the fact that her fire had dimmed, veins dulling like cool magma. Her hair rippled lazily, and its light was no brighter than a cheap festival torch. 

Every now and again, even as she nudged Xoti onwards and marched across this godsforsaken island, Lila caught a glimpse of the blue petals near Xoti’s waist. If her heart clenched a few times as a result, it was simply the ‘diluting poison’ bit that worried her, she told herself. Berath’s flower in the hands of a death priest? Lila shivered. It was definitely _not_ because she started to wonder if she carried death the way that flower held its sweet poison. It wasn’t because Xoti’s voice had started to sound just a little too high pitched this morning, or because she _missed_ the feeling of having an ally she wasn’t tugging around on puppet strings.

A deep sigh swirled up from within Lila’s chest. She pushed it impatiently past her lips, but the breath seemed to catch on her very essence. It shook her, a shockwave beating against her heart and lungs, and Lila couldn’t pretend _this_ was the resonance of the gods. There was too much remorse.

* * *

_While though the tempest loudly roars_

_I hear the truth, it liveth_

_And, oh, the darkness 'round me close_

_Songs in the night it giveth._

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to the people on the PoE wiki who keep a list of every goddamn plant in the game.


End file.
